The final era is the shortest time frame because it begins after the merger season when ABA teams were absorbed into the NBA (History.com). In the second era the rivalry was Chamberlain vs Russell, in the third era it was the NBA vs the ABA, and finally in this fourth era emerged the quintessential NBA rivalry between Larry Bird and Magic Johnson. 

Starting in the 1979 NCAA Basketball Championship game when Bird’s Indiana State team lost to Magic’s Michigan State team, both players came into the NBA as competitors (Lopresti, 2021). Their rivalry only became more heated when they joined teams with longstanding history as the biggest rivalry in the league, between the Boston Celtics and the Los Angeles Lakers. 

Larry Bird led the Boston Celtics to the 1981 NBA Finals, where he was victorious over the Houston Rockets. These Finals had terrible television ratings, leading to the end of the practice of tape delay, where a network would record a game and play it during a timeslot that didn’t interfere with the highly rated shows on the network (Adgate, 2024). The 1982 NBA Finals, where Magic Johnson led the Lakers to a victory over the Philadelphia 76ers, was broadcast entirely live, permanently ending the practice of tape delay, and ushering the NBA broadcast into its modern form (Adgate, 2024).